A Look into Medieval Homes
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A Look into Medieval Homes
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Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#2Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry.
I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage the working class of the Industrial Revolution (including ‘forgetting’ all the traditional festivals and days free from labor), and this sort of article makes me wonder whether this is additional evidence. Or possibly just the sanitized version for the entertainment of the upper class?
PS: a sidenote - strange to see spelling mistakes like a “pain of glass” in an academic paper.
Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#3Visited “Golden Lane” under Prague Castle not long ago. Dates back to 16th century. What fascinated me was how tiny some of the “apartments” were. Basically 15 square meters for living, but also conducting their craft or business. Yet many of them seemed quite charming. Maybe we don’t need much.
Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#4Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…
There's this common trope that medieval peasant clothing was all drab sackcloth. It was actually usually vibrantly dyed, and ACOUP goes into this in considerable detail:
https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-t...
Likewise, medieval houses were often painted with local dyes, like Falu red in the Nordics.
Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#5Visited “Golden Lane” under Prague Castle not long ago. Dates back to 16th century. What fascinated me was how tiny some of the “apartments” were. Basically 15 square meters for living, but also conducting their craft or business. Yet many of them seemed quite charming. Maybe we don’t need much.
Yes, human can live in a burrow, it seems.
Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#6Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…
> PS: a sidenote - strange to see spelling mistakes like a “pain of glass” in an academic paper.
Presumably transcription errors; that example appears as "pane of glass" in the original paper visible at https://books.google.com/books?id=AQDtAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PP7&pg=PA...>
Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#7The couple warming up their genitals by the fire was a rather unexpected detail in an otherwise mundane early 15th century painting (and one I'm surprised did not warrant a mention). I suppose it was a mundane act indeed.
Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#8Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…
>strange to see spelling mistakes like a “pain of glass” in an academic paper.
I did a double take when I read that a "white car warms itself by the fire". Good to know that medieval peasants had motorized transport!
Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#9The last scene of Joseph and Mary from the tres riche heures shows an adjustable pot hanger, over the fireplace. Assuming it's not just artistic licence or artistic invention, The fireplace has a reverbatory rear: it's designed to reflect heat. It's also part of the thermal mass of the house.
The adjustable pot hanger would be familiar to any cook for the next 400 years: it provides for variable sizes of pot, and distance from the fire: it's heat adjustable cooking for a slow summer or fast boil. I checked in Google images, Victorian examples abound, substantively the same.
You'd be as much in control of cooking temperature as in an aga cooker.
Re: A Look into Medieval Homes
#10Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…
The life of a peasant was one of serfdom, watching too many of your children die before their 4th birthday. The wheat you grew you had to mill in a landlord's mill and they collected a tax from it. There was no light in the evenings because tallow or other wax was far too expensive so when it got dark there were limited things to do. Floors were covered in rushes instead of carpet and were host to bugs. True medicine was not there, surgery unheard of for the peasant class.
The days "free from labour" weren't really free from labour, those "free" days are days spent doing menial boring work that we have industrialised away. days spent butchering animals, repairing clothes and tools, teasing wool.
You'd be lucky to own more than 2 sets of clothes. Work was backbreaking and if you couldn't work, you were a pauper.
Yeah, if you only look at the "good" (only 150 "work" days a year!) and ignore the bad (all of the above), yeah it sounds great. The reality was not so rosy.
For my ancestors, it would undoubtedly have been fucking awful. They'd have loved to this in this world we now have.